Written by

John Austin and Casandra Ulbrich

Casandra Ulbrich

John Austin, a Democrat from Ann Arbor, is president of the State Board of Education. He is director of the Michigan Economic Center at the Prima Civitas Foundation. He is also a non-resident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution. Casandra Ulbrich, a Democrat from Rochester Hills, is vice president of the State Board of Education. She is vice president for college advancement and community relations at Macomb Community College.

John Austin

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Last year, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free-market think-tank in Midland, claimed that Michigan is spending more for K-12 education despite a decline in student enrollment. This raises an important question: Why would a state that is experiencing an annual decline in student enrollment allow the creation of more schools?

We wish we could answer: “To improve school quality and get better outcomes.” But we can’t. The short answer is: profit.

The Free Press’ investigation of charter schools highlights significant problems, including lack of transparency, profiteering with taxpayer dollars, and the collective impact of unregulated new school creation that is leaving most schools with less funding and diminished services. All because public education in Michigan has become big business, and the profit motive trumps common sense when it comes to education strategy.

The bond-rating agency Moody’s downgraded dozens of Michigan school districts last year, which may result in higher borrowing costs for local schools. Moody’s specifically pointed to the fiscal strain placed on traditional school districts as their enrollments become increasingly unstable. This instability is happening across the state, and can come from multiple factors, including students leaving for districts that allow choice. But it is most pronounced in urban areas, where charter schools have flooded the “market.”

Charter school advocates will point to the need for choice. Choice is important if new choices deliver better educational performance. If more charters and options mean a better education, Michigan — one of the states with the most charters and share of students enrolled in charters — would be outperforming nearly every other state. We’re not.

In fact, the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress results show Michigan students falling further behind in reading and math proficiency.

It’s not a question of quantity, but quality. And in recent years, the Michigan Legislature and governor have rejected common-sense quality controls recommended by the state Board of Education in expanding choice, charters and cyber schools. As a result, we see expansion of schools coming from poor- and mediocre-performing for-profit charter management companies.

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As the Free Press stories illustrate, producing a quality education for our young people means we need to fundamentally change our policies on charters and creating new schools. In coming weeks, we plan to ask for specific legislation to fix the problems with charters around:

■ Quality: We should replicate the policies of the highest performing states, such as Massachusetts, who have a rigorous application process for new charter schools, as well as strict oversight of new schools for the first five years — to ensure that they are high quality. Charter schools in Massachusetts are authorized by the state Board of Education to ensure strong oversight and accountability from a publicly elected body.

■ Transparency: Some states forbid for-profit management companies to run charter schools in their states. Michigan, unfortunately, has one of the least restrictive environments for charter schools in the country. It’s a “free market,” governed by nonelected boards that often allow the management company to take control over the school’s budget. The for-profit company then hires all the staff and provides any benefits. As a result, information that is required to be made public by traditional schools is often lacking when it comes to charters. The state must do a better job of demanding transparency from charter and cyber schools.

■ Increased oversight: Central to this question of transparency is the practice of non-arms-length transactions/lease agreements. Not unique to Michigan, similar issues have come to light in other states, including Florida, Pennsylvania and New York. But other states have acted to rectify the problem. New York state outlawed new for-profit charters. More than a year ago, Michigan’s Board of Education called on the Legislature to address this. Some of our state leaders, unfortunately, seem to not only accept this arrangement, but encourage it.

■ Develop a public education strategy: We are not opposed to choice, or charters. However, it’s important to recognize that “choice for choice’s sake” is not a strategy to improve education. Without quality expectations for new choices, young people enrolling in them are disserved, getting a worse education. Quality charters are also starved for students, as bad schools flood the marketplace. Our remaining public schools have diminished enrollment and resources, degrading education for those students. Ninety percent of Michigan parents send their child to a locally governed, locally supported traditional school. If our state policies make it difficult for these schools not only to excel, but even survive, the state is actually removing choice.

We must take a step back and develop a commonsense strategy for improving public education in Michigan. This includes placing a moratorium on new school creation until we put in place a sensible choice and charter strategy that improves learning for all students.